All around the world, motor vehicles are fitted with license plates (sometimes referred to as registration plates or number plates) to identify them for official purposes. Each license plate comprises an identifier (numeric or alphanumeric) unique to the issuing region that can be used to permit easy identification of the vehicle and by extension details surrounding the vehicle such as its history and its owner. In some countries the license plate identifiers are unique nationally, while in others the identifiers are unique to a particular state or province.
Unfortunately, due to their uniquely identifying nature, the ability to able to steal or tamper with (i.e. remove or attempt to remove) license plates is particularly attractive to criminals. Examples of crimes relating to license plate tampering include masking the identity of stolen vehicles, fleeing from fuel stations without paying and evading parking tickets, speeding fines, congestion charges or tolls.
There have been a number of solutions proposed in the past to try and counter license plate related crimes. A common approach is to use tamper proof screws (sometimes referred to as “security screws”) to try to make it difficult to remove license plates from a vehicle. However, these are easily overcome and therefore of limited effectiveness.